Midas Touch (was:Follow up on my 4kq search. (painfully long))

[ANDREW FINNEY <afinney@bigplanet.com>]

Snip

>Before I get comments that tell me to sue them, or pursue a mutual
agreement to settle let me respond. I have in the past pursued a chain
store for performing substandard work. I spent alot of time on the
telephone and writing letters back and forth to Sears.
>

A funny thing happened to me when I went to get an alignment for my UrQ
at Sears. After the alignment, I was taking an offramp at speed and when
I straightened up the wheel at the end of the ramp I noticed that the
steering wheel was still turned a quarter turn and the car was going
straight. When I got home I discovered they had forgotten to tighten a
lot of the rear ball joint nuts in the front and the rear, plus they had
stripped the left rear tierod stud.

To cut the story short, after countless misaligments (no it is not a
1990 coupe quattro or a 5000 quattro) they bought me the second to last
UrQ rear tierod in the US (ends are not sold separately) at a cost to
them of $350. When I got home I discovered they'd replaced the wrong
side. The bad one was still on the left rear. One million more phone
calls and they bought and installed the last early UrQ rear tierod.

The cost to me, $50 alignment and two million calls and countless hours
in the waiting rooms. Cost to them, 4 alignments, and $700 in Audi
parts.

It was worth it to me, but that's because I'm still alive. The shoddy
work could have killed me.

Andrew Finney
1983 UrQ.